The Art of Imperfection: Lessons from Ansel Adams with Alan Ross 

This was interesting in two ways. First of course the interview and the stories about Ansel Adams. Second was that this is the first time (I'm aware of) that one of your videos has popped up in my RU-vid feed (maybe because of the title). I watch quite a few videos on RU-vid on different subjects, most on photography and landscape photography so why haven't I've seen it before. I've only watched two of your videos so early to evaluate the channel, but I certainly found it interesting so far. I understand that 1-3-hour interviews on photography most likely never will give you millions of subscribers, but 1.41K after many years and so many videos seem weird. I noticed you asked for more Patreon support, but I don't see how you'll get that without more views and subscribers first. Your content seems fairly unique - it's got to be something you can do to make it more visible on RU-vid? I'm just a viewer with no insight in RU-vid strategies so not much I can help, but there are regularly people who tell what they did - maybe there are something you can pick up even if it doesn't apply directly to your type of content? Anyway, good luck with your channel. You at least got one new subscriber today.

I wrote Ansel a letter from Arrowbear Lake where I lived in the San Bernardino Mountains when I was 15 years old. He wrote me a reply and invited me to his workshops that I attended in Carmel and Yosemite in 1978. Four years later, after being Herb Quick’s assistant at the University of California at Riverside I met with Alan Ross again at his studio in San Francisco. He recommended me for my first job in San Francisco at the Maritime Museum. I have always been grateful to Ansel and Alan for the gift of shared inspiration and instruction that led me to a lifetime in photography. Yes Alan, your work as a teacher and role model impacted me greatly, words of thanks fall short!! Thank you for this post!

Here is a story about Ansel Adams and my dad. My dad was active in photography through the fifties. He was a big fan of Ansel Adams and bought just about all of his books. Adams had just published his autobiography and a bookstore in Palo Alto was selling them. Adams was going to be in the store to autograph them. My dad decided to get his other books autographed. So he packed them up, two large suitcases of them. When he arrived, Adams was alone at a table with a stack of his books. My dad got one, Adams autographed it, then my dad put the two large suitcases on the table, opened them and asked Ansel if he would autograph the books. With a big smile, Ansel proceeded to sign each of them. He must have been happy to find a big fan.

First time listener. I am 69 years old,an grew up in Miami Florida. Back in the Mid 1970, while at theUniversity of Miami,studying photography. I was shooting 2 1/4, and 4X5. I contacted Ansel Adams by phone. He was the nicest person, to me. We talked often,about photography and his zone system. Ansel even sent me one of his soft light units,to replace the light bulb and magnifier lens in my enlarger. He told me how it REALLY helped with the Mid tones. Boy was he right. I was even offered a teaching job at the University. Later when i moved away, i donated all my darkroom equipment to Uof M, including Ansels soft light. To this day i still shoot, just Leica M, monochrome. Due to its size and weight, it’s Great. Very nice Video, Thanks

really enjoyed this discussion. great history, stories, and topics to think through on today's photo walk.

I learned the Zone System in 1971 from the 1968 edition of Adams’ book and in the forward he acknowledged the nearly universal confusion on the part of of photographer that Zones = f/stops, suggesting the reader mentally substitute “Print Value” whenever encountering the word “Zone” in the book. In the 1968 and previous editions there were TEN zones numbered 0-9, and very logical choice for a ten-finger piano player but also a source of confusion because he originally failed to assign a “Zone / Print Value” number to the white paper based which must be reserved for reproduction of the specular reflections which in subsequent editions were designated ZONE 10 because despite the confusion over Zones = f/stops he continued to call them “Zones”. Prior to using the Zone System I had learned darkroom technique and portrait lighting from Kodak “How To’ books which were displayed in a rack at every photo shop back in the 1960s. Out of necessity B&W roll film needed to be developed to a time/temp baseline which would fit a typical 18% reflectance outdoor scene in 45° mid-day cross lighting exposed per the “Sunny 16 - 1/ASA @ f/16” to the contrast range of its #2 grade print paper. The sun is a very consistent light source so Sunny 16 proved to be a very simple and predictable way to get adequately exposed shadows in a contrasty scene all the time and with a simple test or just over the course of developing your first rolls of film at the time/temp suggested on the developer data sheet it was possible to get the same full range of tonality from max black on clear areas of the negative in shadow voids (i.e. Print Value 0) with visual separation with smooth black solids creeping out of those voids (PV 1) and the first hint of texture create BY SHADOWS (PV2) to the visual separation between PV 9 smooth whites and the PV 10 specular highlights on them which are the only clue to 3D shapes on dimensionally flat 95-99% reflectance white objects. Fitting the cross-lit Sunny 16 scene to #2 paper with “Normal” development is exactly the same baseline Adams used for his system. But his differed from the Kodak approach was that for scenes with more or less contrast in the lighting (e.g., Open Shade, Overcast) instead of changing paper grade to fit the different density ranges those scene produced in the highlights on the negative he opted to change development time so the highlight densities in the PV 9 (smooth white) objects in the highlights printed a light gray tone on the print, just dark enough to for the PV 10 specular highlights be preserved. The fact that PERCEPTUALLY it is necessary to render BLACK objects as PV1 dark gray tones and PV9 WHITE objects as light gray (not the white paper base) is something many photographers still don’t understand because it’s counter-intuitive. What also is under appreciated, I learned from later becoming a lab technician and photo reproduction expert at National Geographic teaching photographic reproduction for offset printing and photography lighting for many years is the role the specular highlights play in the perception of 3D shapes in 2D images. In extreme situations like a black cat sitting on a pile of coal or white cat on snow drift the primary clue the the brain used to see 3D in a 2D are the specular reflections from the light sources. One of my jobs at NGS was making B&W halftones from B&W prints, many of which didn’t have good blacks in the shadow values. By using three different exposures with a contact screen on the back of a process (copy) camera it was possible to to correct that in the same way is now possible in Photoshop with the shadow/highlight/midtones sliders in levels. As in B&W print making the goal was to have PV0 voids reproduced with solid black ink, and PV9 values reproduced with the smallest halftone dot the press could maintain during a production run with the paper base being reserved for the PV10 highlights. But unlike photo paper the papers used for printing magazines are not nearly as reflective so it was necessary to shift the midtone values based on how reflective the paper the reproduction was printed on, similar to changing the contrast in the middle tones in LEVELS with that middle slider. What I learned from becoming an expert at reproducing photos in both B&W and CMYK separations and becoming the person that did the film testing and process control in our lab was that the notion of shifting mid-tone values via exposure in the Adams System based on the reading of an 18% Kodak Gray card was artistic but technically flawed because there is no “middle slider” on the DlogE curve of the negative which allows the LINEARITY of tonal values between PV0 and PV10 to be changed as in Photoshop with LEVELS and CURVES in digital files. The best one can really do with the Zone System is precisely expose the shadows so they fall down on the curved ‘toe” of the DlogE curve, which allows more subtle transitions down in PV1 and PV2 and then develop the negatives so the separation of PV9 and PV10 on the print paper is preserved with the paper base reserved for the shape specular highlights. Any shifting of tonal relationships between PV0 and PV10 on B&W film had to be done either with color filters at the time of exposure (e.g. darken blue sky with red filter or lighten green foliate with green one) or by selective dodging and burning on the print. What I also came to realize working with orthochromatic lithograph films and studying the development of photography was that prior to the 1930s all B&W pictorial film was orthochromatic which affected how red objects were rendered but also allowed film to be developed VISUALLY under safe lights. The way Adams, Weston and all of his contemporaries had learned to develop their SHEET film in trays was to develop until by eye and experience they knew the highlight densities would fit the range of the whatever contrast paper they were using. All Adams did was adapt that same methodology to develop of Panchromatic film in total darkness by testing what development time was needed for different lighting contrast / EV range. Studying the history of exposure metering and why 18% reflectance became the ASA standard I discover the clever analog device photographers used to determine scene range before electronic metering. It was a card with two holes in it, one clear and the other with a strip of neutral density in .30 density units (i.e. log (Incident/Transmitted) with each .30 increase in density cutting the light transmitted in half. By putting the clear hole over the shadows of a scene and the one with the ND strip over the highlights the strip would be pulled until the ND made the highlights look the same as the shadows. So even before electronic spot meters it was possible to QUANTIFY scene ranges with a simple and inexpensive device. I made one with a transparent step wedge I calibrated on a densitometer and tested it against my 1° Honeywell meter. I had bought my Honeywell / Pentax 1° spot meter in 1971 so I could quantify scene range in stops / EV values which is what made me realize immediately that ZONES ARE NOT ALWAYS ONE EV apart on other than clear sunny cross-lit scenes. Also because I understood how exposure meters work and why 18% was selected to calibrate them I could skip the step of metering off the 18% card and instead meter directly off the PV1 / PV2 areas in the scene by CHANGING THE ASA SETTING on the dial of the meter until that direct reading exposed those areas on the negative and print optimally, down on the toe of the negative not overexposed and up on the more linear straight line part of the curve. My adjusted “Zone System’ metering technique was to: 1) point spot meter at PV1 and PV2 solid/textured areas of scene for exposure, then 2) point meter at PV8 and PV9 areas taking care to keep PV10 specular reflections out of the reading area to determine the EV range of the scene and from that either what development time I would need for that EV range to fit it on #2 print paper (per the gospel of St. Ansel) or know in advance what Polycontrast filtration would be needed back in the darkroom with NORMAL development (per the gospel of Kodak). At the time I learned the Zone System I as using a pair of Nikon F bodies with 35mm and 85mm lenses at college for PJ work and making my prints on Polycontrast paper developed in a tabletop machine processor. My modified ‘Zone System’ spot metering approach allowed me to expose the shadows on the prints perfectly and also get good full range 3D rendering in the highlights in any lighting conditions by knowing what degree of magenta or yellow filter to use. Later when I had my own darkroom I equipped my enlarger with a color head and did testing to determine how each 10 cc (color correction value) of yellow or magenta change the range of the Polycontrast paper by printing a calibrated gray scale along side the frame exposed on roll film negatives exposed in scenes with different EV ranges.

In about 1983 I was to have William Garnet as a instructor, however he went on sabbatical that year and Richard Misrach taught the course. It was the best eye changing experience I ever had in photography. Thanks Richard!

Alan I have one of your prints (oak tree snowstorm) and have a friend who studied with Alsel many many years ago. Great to hear you speaking about your background and how you got to where you are. Back then I worked in a custom Ektrachrome lab in Seattle and for a commercial photo firm plus doing my own work a couple days a week. Ansel sounds a little like Peter Gowland - get him on the phone and you better be ready for an hours talk.

Great interview/discussion. Thanks!

A very good interview with lots of insight and perspective. I think the title is very relevant. Good work!

Fascinating.

The art of imperfection is Wabi Sabi !

Proof that you could claim to buy Playboy for the articles!!